Closer by Maxine Linnell Page B

I’m starving.”

Losing it 
    When Mum gets over the shock she makes me scrambled eggs and thick toast and butter and I sit at the table and eat most of it, with a mug of tea. Mum makes herself coffee and sits at the table with me. We’re not talking much, just being quiet and easy. It seems like a normal family again. It seems like everything last night was a bad dream that’s washed the troubles away so we can forget about it all. 
    Then Dad comes in, half awake and running his hand over his hair like he does. He’s slept in his clothes. I see the teeth marks on his hand, the blood dried up, and I can’t breathe. He’s behaving like normal and Mum and I are staring at him. I can’t believe he’s wandering over and filling the kettle and pouring a bowl of cornflakes and going to the fridge for the milk and sitting down at the table next to Mum. 
    I push back my chair and stand up. I’m frightened and my heart’s pumping. “I’m not sitting here with you,” I say. “How can you eat breakfast like nothing’s happened?” Then I realise I’ve just eaten breakfast myself, but that’s something I never do, so it fits this day which is different from all the other days. 
    â€œTake it in the other room, Steve. Get out of here.” Mum’s voice is calm and cold. 
    â€œWhat d’you mean? Can’t a man have breakfast in his own house?” 
    I’m out of there and up the stairs to my bedroom. Hannah’s woken up and gone in the bathroom and my bed’s all rumpled. I slam the door and I pull the bed apart, the sheets and the pillowcases and the duvet, and the duvet cover rips as I pull it off and I don’t care and I shove the books off the shelf and throw them onto the heap and empty the drawers of all the clothes and I realise it’s me shouting and screaming. And when my voice goes I grab the duvet and wrap it round me and sit in the corner of the room and hug my knees and go to the good place where nothing matters and nobody, nobody can touch me.

Me and Raj 
    I think they decided to let me be, because it’s later and I’ve woken up hot in the duvet. There’s a text on my phone from Raj. He wants to see me. He says he felt bad after we met. I haven’t thought about him since I saw him in the park. It feels like a week ago. But I really want to see him now. I brush my hair and wash my face. When I go downstairs there’s nobody around. The living room door is closed and I can hear Mum talking to Dad in that cold voice. Through the kitchen door I see his bowl of cornflakes still on the table. I leave by the back door so they don’t see me go. 
    Raj is by the park gates like he’s been there all night. He’s looking out for me, and he comes up and hugs me and I let him and remind myself not to cry. 
    â€œYou went so soon yesterday. I’m sorry, I was so made up about the course and everything, I didn’t even think about us. And then when you’d gone I couldn’t do anything else but think. About us. You. And me.” 
    I don’t want to say anything. Right now I want to be there with him, without any of it. I’m listening hard, smelling his sweatshirt and the sun on his hair and feeling his arms round me. I never thought I’d hear him say things like this. 
    â€œI don’t know if I want to go. Not if it means I don’t see you.” 
    I move away from him and look at him. His arms are still round me, and he’s looking right into my eyes and I can see he means what he’s saying and I matter to him, really matter, and I let him matter to me. 
    And he’s kissing me, gently, like he’s holding something stronger back, and I want